Uber Driver Tried To Kidnap Woman, Take Her To Hotel, Passenger Claims

A woman who taught law at the University of Denver took to Twitter to recount her nightmarish Uber ride on Tuesday morning.

Nancy Leong called an Uber to travel from her home to the airport, but her driver told her midway through the ride he was going to take her to a hotel instead of the destination she set and drove off the highway.

“Hey @Uber your driver was taking me to the airport. He said he was going to ‘take me to a hotel’ and got off the highway. We got to a stop light. I started yelling ‘let me out of the f-----g car’ and he wouldn’t unlock the doors,” she tweeted.

A woman who taught law at the University of Denver took to Twitter to recount her nightmarish Uber ride. In this photo illustration, a woman uses the Uber app on an Samsung smartphone in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 2, 2014. Photo: Getty Images/ Adam Berry

After the driver ignored her repeated demands to unlock the door, Leong started pounding on the closed window when the car stopped at a red light. Her pounding drew the attention of some of the construction workers nearby. Finally, the driver unlocked the door.

Next, Leong started banging on the trunk of the vehicle where her suitcase was stowed and got the driver to pop the trunk. “Then he got out of the car and started coming toward me,” she wrote. “Remember we are at a stop light at the bottom of a highway off ramp. There’s nothing around. Thank god there were construction workers there.”

The car then almost hit another vehicle, as it rolled into the intersection, given that the handbrake wasn't applied.

Leong immediately called another Uber without wasting time or creating a fuss because she was afraid of missing her flight. She added that she was glad the construction workers waited with her till the second Uber arrived.

Thankfully, Leong said, the new Uber was nothing like the first one and she managed to make it to the airport on time.

As she waited to board her flight, she decided to vent on social media, asking Uber for an explanation. She added that she was not comfortable with the fact that the driver knew where she lived since he came to pick her up from her home.

Leong also remarked she had gone back to the ridesharing app’s history and the picture of the supposed driver did not match the guy driving the first Uber. While she failed to notice this detail because the driver did not get down from the vehicle when he arrived at her doorstep, she had a good look at him when he tried to approach her at the end of the harrowing ride.

“Hey @uber I need you to understand how terrifying this was. I was about 10 seconds from putting my foot through the back passenger window,” Leong wrote, demanding to hear back from the company without delay.

Uber tweeted back at Leong saying: “We take this seriously, Nancy. We are ready to look into this right away. Please send us a DM with your information so we can look into this immediately.”

Furthermore, Uber spokesman told the New York Post regarding the incident: “What Nancy described is awful and unacceptable. This driver has been blocked from the app and we are investigating.”

There have been quite a few instances of Uber drivers trying to sexually assault customers. In 2014, an Uber driver in Orlando, Florida, was arrested for fondling a female passenger’s breasts and later blaming his actions on the victim’s choice of clothes.